Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The Renaissance of "Weekend at Bernie's", The Rise & Fall of Pickleball and more...

Weekend At Bernie's has always ready for a renaissance. The late 80's comedy meant to spring Brat-Packers into adult comedy stars in an outlandish comedy. The film, based on one of the more ridiculous premises ever, has lived perpetually in the TV movie cycle as long as I can remember, and it even spawned a more ludicrous sequel.

Is Weekend at Bernie's II the only movie since the silent era that some got their name in big letters on a poster without speaking a word, and leaving most of your characters work to an actual dummy? G-d bless, Terry Kiser. It's great work if you can get it. Just because he plays a dead man doesn't mean he can't cash residual checks.

I wonder if Kiser is collecting cash from the latest rap dance craze that his character has inspired. The dance is the "Berney Dance" for a song fittingly entitled "Movin Like Berney." They misspell Bernie's name in the song title. Is that on purpose? Did they forget to double check the spelling on Google like I always do? I don't think so but if you'd like to see how you can move like Bernie or should I say Berney (or Michael Jackson in "Thriller")...

Looks like a club hit in the making if I don't say so myself. You can even submit your own video for the "Berney Dance Contest," sounds like a productive way to spend an afternoon. Bernie truly will never really die.

---

One of my new favorite sites is The Atlantic Wire. It is a highly informative site where the writers and editors compile various points of opinion on different topics. Their latest ingenious Friday feature is called "Things The Wall Street Journal Hates This Week," which is pretty self explanatory. This week's edition includes The EU, Tom Brady's hair, The Federal Reserve & something called 'pickleball.'

For those of us who do not reside on retirement community, where pickleball courts seem to be in ridiculously high demand, here's a 12 minute video that explains it all.

According to the article,

Del Webb, the country's largest builder of active-adult communities, had pickleball courts in fewer than one in five of its developments in 2006. Now, says Jacque Petroulakis, spokeswoman for parent company PulteGroup Inc., the figure is above 50%, and Del Webb incorporates pickleball into almost everything it builds.

Pickleball, what a name! Just saying it makes me smirk. For those who don't wish to sit through the full 12 minute video, it seems to be tennis for the slow, the overweight, and especially those of advanced age and advanced arthritis.

Shockingly, some community members have a pickle to pick with this up-and-coming sport of seniors. Who would think that an old man might complain about it?

Ron Heymann, 65, whose home is about 100 feet from the existing courts, says he won't be sorry to see pickleball go. The noise from games—that of a "hard plastic ball thunk-thunking repetitively on a hard wooden paddle"—is "akin to a toothache that won't go away."

Pickleball players in Mission Royale dispute such claims—for the most part. "There is a constant 'ping, ping,'" concedes John Grasso, 61, president of the local pickleball club. In March, Mr. Grasso says the club purchased a decibel meter from RadioShack. The findings: Tennis reached about 58 decibels while pickleball hit about 60. "There really was no difference. It's just a different sound."

The difference was enough to evict the sport from its home in SaddleBrooke. Residents there, in 2008, first asked pickleball players to switch to a rubber ball to cut back on noise. Pickleball players passed.

"Ask golfers to use a different kind of ball, and see what they say," says John Benter, 69, local pickleball president.

A $4,500 noise study found that sounds from pickleball play were spiking above the county's 60-decibel limit, which applies to ongoing noise. As a result, the homeowners' association banned use of standard pickleball paddles and balls on the courts, effectively shutting down play.

Will people stand for these anti-pickleball activities? Only time will tell.

And now for a few quick ones...

Lifehacker reports (based on a NYTimes article) reports "that willpower is like a muscle capable of fatigue: you can't keep any muscle flexed forever."